The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
In general, various types of electric components (or devices) are installed in vehicles, and such electric components have mutually organic connection relations on the basis of an electronic control unit (ECU). Also, in order to standardize assembling and replacement, most electric components have connections with connectors inserted into output terminals and input terminals, and thus, most electric components have a plurality of installation connectors.
That is, various electric components such as a battery, an ignition device, a starting device, a charging device, a lighting device, a horn, a power window regulator, a wind shield wiper, various measuring instruments, and a cooling device and a heating device as air-conditioning devices are installed in vehicles and, in order for these electric components be electrically connected to a power source, electric wirings and terminals are required.
Various electronic equipment is configured to be operated upon receiving power from a battery and a power generator, and here, a positive (+) terminal is directly connected to an electric wire, while a grounded negative (−) terminal is connected to a vehicle body adjacent to an installation portion of an electronic component so as to be grounded. The reason why the negative (−) terminal of an electronic component is connected to an adjacent vehicle body is because the entirety of the vehicle body serves as a grounding point.
In vehicles, in order to connect various electric components to a battery, a vehicle body is used as a ground. For example, a positive electrode terminal of a battery is directly connected to electric components, but a negative electrode terminal is connected to electronic components in a manner of being grounded to a vehicle body. Here, even though the negative electrode terminal of the battery is grounded to a vehicle body, it has the same effect as that obtained when directly connected to an electronic component.
Recently manufactured vehicles include various types of electric components, and in order to simultaneously ground these electric components, a multi-ground terminal is used. A multi-ground terminal has a structure in which a plurality of ground terminals are stacked to be tightly attached and fixed using ground bolts.